Just a word now and then about working in a prison and for the Department Of Corrections. Plus a good bit of ranting here and there.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Dark Omens

After the day I had yesterday (I don't want to talk about it), you'd think I would have had the sense to call in sick today. But my mother always said I didn't have the sense Gawd gave a goose and I guess she was right because I came in anyway.

First thing right off the bat I see one of our caseworkers (the one we got that works, anyway) heading up to central with a load of property for transfers. He says "There's nobody but utilities in the house. It's a fu*king disaster down there."

Hoo boy. I just love hearing that. I eyeball the front gate and wonder if I could get suddenly sick and go home.

And as I'm pondering my escape route I see BG coming down the walk. Snap! It's too late to go home now. Might as well leap into the fray and at least go down swinging. So down on to the house we go.

When we get down there the only regular house officer they have is the one that is up in the bubble. And he can neither see or hear very good so things are progressing very very slowly. He tells me "They are trying to get the 1:00 releases done. There's only five of them but they can't get them done. Go help out!"

So BG and I trot down and get two releases out the door by the time they get one out of the cell. He goes off to help with med pass and I go into the office to survey the damage. Right away I see files everywhere and notes and papers all over the desks and the utility Sarge struggling with the numbers. He's the kind of guy that would be iffy balancing a checkbook and here he is holding my future count in his hands.

I hit the boards and the numbers and right away I know we are in trouble. Our base numbers are off by eleven! Oh......... snap.

Start writing and erasing and juggling and making phone calls, trying to get the numbers back in line. And Sarge and another officer are "helping" me by making their own fixes, writing and erasing things on the boards.

Forty five minutes later I have improved our numbers so that we are only off by one. I look and look and look and count and recount and recount and we are still off by one. Still no joy.

I glance up at the clock. 3:00 pm. I have fifteen minutes to make this right.

Then they come in and say one of the inmates in B-wing is checking in from his cellie. Snap! Now I have to juggle him while trying to fix this cockup. I say "Stick him over in A-16 and if he doesn't want to go, stuff him through the chuck hole. He's going in there anyway!"

3:05. Snap!

Then somebody says, out of the blue "What about that other guy in A-23?" I look at the board and there is only one inmate in that cell. I say "You mean the guy you erased? I thought you said he got released???"

Welllllll......... maybe not.

Check the files and sure enough, he was still in there. Write the guy back on the board and double check the numbers and call control center to triple check and we are there.

Made it with seconds to spare. I was beginning to worry there for a minute.

I had hoped after that exciting start that the rest of the evening would be a cake walk.